As an interface for exchanging information between a computer and a user, there is a user interface (UI). On an operation screen of a UI, for example, when a menu displayed on the screen is selected with a mouse, a keyboard, and such, the display screen is changed and various applications are executed. When developing an operation screen of such a UI, the layout of an operation screen, actions of UI components, and the like are set by a developer.
The development of such a UI is carried out in the order of a “UI specification creating process” where a developer determines operations of the UI and describes specifications thereof, a “developing process” where the developer creates a source code, and a “testing process” where the developer verifies operability of the UI by actually operating the UI using the source code generated.
Specifically, in the UI specification process, the developer freely describes content of on-screen processes in natural language to create specifications of the UI. In the developing process, the developer then sees the content of the processes described in the specification process, and carries out coding to describe a source code manually using a programming language to generate the source code. Thereafter, in the testing process, the developer converts the source code generated to an object code, and verifies the operability of the UI by actually operating the UI.
Related-art examples are described in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2000-099317 and Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 09-237181.
With the above-described UI developing approach, however, in the UI specification process where the operations of a UI are determined, the operability of the UI is not verified and thus the development of the UI is not carried out promptly. More specifically, in the UI specification process, merely the content of on-screen processes is described in natural language and, after a source code is generated in the developing process, the verification of operability is carried out by actually running the source code in the testing process. Thereafter, when a problem arises in the verification of operability, the specifications of the UI are changed in the UI specification process and the source code is generated again. This creates significant rework causing a delay in the development of the UI.